Tag: fear

Pursuing the Good Life

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Everyone desires a good life.  No one wakes up in the morning and hopes they have a bad day.  A person might get up on the wrong side of the bed and grump his/her way through the first hours of the day, but nobody makes a conscious decision to deliberately have a bad life.  We all want a good life.  Students go to school hoping to have a good experience.  Marriages begin with the hope of having a good life together.  New employees start with the wish that there will be satisfaction in doing a job well-done.  Parents dream of their kids growing up to have a good life.  We want the kind of life that brings contentment, joy, and happiness.
 
            A good life comes through the fear of the Lord (Psalm 34:9-14).  Yes, that’s right, the fear of the Lord.  If we want to live a good life, it will have the fear of the Lord at the heart of it.  We need to make an important distinction between good fear and bad fear.  We as human beings are all too familiar with bad fear.  Bad fear is being too afraid to take the steps necessary to have a good life.  It is being insecure, risk-averse, and unwilling to take even a small step toward expanding my comfort zone.  Bad fear causes people to retreat in bubble of anxiety that keeps them stuck and imprisoned in a small world of protection, unable to engage God’s big world with any effectiveness.  Bad fear is to be afraid of what other people may or may not do or say.  Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe (Proverbs 29:25). 
 
The way to overcome the fear of others and the fear of the situations that might happen is to have the good kind of fear, the fear of the Lord.  The fear of the Lord means to honor and obey God, to be loyal and submissive.  It does not mean being afraid, like the bad fear of people.
 
            If you want to lack no good thing; if you desire to see many good days; if you do want to simply survive in life but to thrive in it and love the life you possess; then, the first thing that must happen is taking the posture of listening.
 
 
 
            The Hebrew word “listen” literally means to bend or to incline the ear.  It is to take a posture of listening in order to learn.  The prerequisite to any kind of good life is to have a teachable-spirit that gives focused attention to the wisdom God has for us.  A fool is a person who does not listen, but only mocks, complains, and is continually negative.  But a wise person is one who has learned to be attentive to the voice of God.  Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.  Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you.  Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning (Proverbs 9:7-9).
 
            The fear of people is a death-dealing practice.  But the person who fears God through the posture of a teachable spirit discovers a life-giving practice that will serve him/her well.  The teachable spirit takes the posture of listening and learning from other people’s hard-won experiences.  It bends the ear to good advice.  It inclines toward acquiring knowledge and learning the skill set needed to live a good successful Christian life.  There cannot be a good life without having a teachable spirit, seeking after learning, discovering, and listening. 
 
            Therefore, Christians cannot learn if they will not read.  The Bible is a book.  If the Bible was a car I would tell us all to learn to be mechanics.  If the Bible were a fish or a deer I would tell us all to learn the best ways to hunt and fish.  If the Bible was a store I would tell us all to learn to be good shoppers and consumers.  But the Bible is a book, and so we all need to read it, memorize it, meditate on it, and learn from it.  Get in the Word of God!  Wise churches will find ways to immerse themselves in Scripture and have moldable teachable spirits. 
 

 

If we desire a good life we will fear God and keep his commandments; we will be readers of Scripture and take the posture of listening and learning.  If we want to experience the good life we will engage in personal reading, corporate reading, and bible studies.  We will find ways to get into the Word!

1 Samuel 18:6-30

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Anxiety tends to warp our thinking.  Maybe that statement seems a bit harsh.  After all, everyone is anxious at some time or another.  Anxiety is part and parcel of the human experience; it is something we all have in common.  However, when anxiety takes root in the heart it bears the fruit of unholy fear.  Today’s Old Testament story illustrates the insecurity and irrationality that an unchecked anxious heart can produce.
 
            King Saul was jealous of David’s success in battle.  Behind Saul’s anxiety was the concern that David was in the limelight.  It made Saul angry that David was getting all the attention.  Since he was the one in charge, Saul kept putting David in situations where it seemed that he would certainly fail.  But instead of failure, David had wild success in everything he did.  The text makes it clear that this was because “the LORD was with him.”  This made Saul even more anxious and afraid to the degree that he had malevolent motives behind everything he did toward David.  Even though it might not have looked evil on the outside, in reality the interior life of Saul was a mess, and it made him stupid.
 
            When Saul saw and knew that God was with David, it only reinforced his fear and led him down a dark path.  In contrast to Saul, David had a character developed in the lonely place of the pasture.  Genuine integrity is always forged in the secret place where no one is looking.  If we are only concerned for outward performance and/or perfectionism, all kinds of anxieties can develop and warp our sense of reality.  But if we pay attention to the inner person and allow God to create a deep faith within, then we can stand strong even when there are those who have ill will against us.
            Search me, O God, and know my heart.  Test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  Amen.

Genesis 45:25-46:7

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            The patriarch Jacob had lived years with the belief that his beloved son was dead and gone, having been the victim of a horrible mauling.  But he was amazed to find out that Joseph was not only alive but in charge of all Egypt.  By this time in Jacob’s life he was an old man with not many years left.  He must certainly have had some fear about going to Egypt and what that would mean for him and his family because God came to him and said, “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation.  I myself will go down with you….”
 
            Fear is likely one of the most pervasive commonalities of people of all ages from all eras – which is why the most repeated command in all of Holy Scripture is the exhortation by God to not be afraid.  The prescription to not fear always contains the reason:  God is with us.
 
            If the Bible were to have an actual title, it would not be inappropriate to have the title “God With Us.”  The story of Scripture from beginning to end is one of humanity having a love/hate relationship with God and often fickle in faith.  But, in contrast, God continues to be the same.  He maintains his covenant loyalty no matter people’s failures of faith and commitment; his presence is with them.
 
            The height and fulfillment of that divine presence came with the sending of the Son, the Lord Jesus.  His name is Immanuel, God with us.  The closer we get to Jesus, the more we realize God is near and the less we have to fear.  Even despite suffering, pain, and, in the case of the ancient Israelites, slavery in Egypt, God is with us through the hard circumstances of life.
            Father God, thank you for the gift of your Son, Jesus.  Help me so to know him so that I will live in faith and confidence no matter the situations of my life.  Amen.

Psalm 46

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            For centuries the psalms have been the beloved prayer book of God’s people.  Pious Jews would know all one-hundred fifty of them by memory; medieval monks would recite them all over the course of a week, going over each one fifty-two times a year.  The psalms do more than present sound theology for modern humans; they give voice to our deepest feelings and greatest fears.
             Psalm 46 is one of the finest pieces of Hebrews poetry you will find.  Its message is one of comfort; its God is one who is in control; its prose is simply beautiful.  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.”  The psalms inspire trust in God, and help relieve the chaos that seems to envelop all around us.
             It is therefore a small thing to recite this psalm many times, and allow it to become part of memory.  Being able to draw from its well in times of trouble and meditate on it can be significant in the heat of a situation.  Knowing this psalm intimately is not a shot that inoculates us from difficulty and brings instant deliverance.  But it can point us to a faithful and trusted God who knows what he is doing and is always with us, even in the cataclysmic events of our lives.
             O God, you are my refuge and my strength.  Bolster my faith in all the difficult situations around me so that I might not fear, but trust you.  I will be still and wait for your deliverance without trying to orchestrate my own.  In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.